German playwright, poet, and theatrical reformer Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (1898–1956) developed theatre as a forum for critical reflection on society in order to advance his Marxist beliefs. Born in Augsburg, Bavaria, on February 10, Brecht studied medicine in Munich and briefly served at an army hospital in WorldWar I. During the early 1920s, he developed an anti-bourgeois attitude and studied Marxism. Brecht lived in Berlin from 1924 to 1933, where he collaborated with composer Kurt Weill (1900–1950) and developed his theory of "epic theater" and his austere, irregular verse. In 1933, Brecht went into exile, spending six years in the United States (1941–1947), where he did some film work in Hollywood. During exile, Brecht wrote most of his great plays, essays, and poems, while his work was being burned in Nazi Germany. In 1949, he moved back to Berlin and despite the controversial communist ideals of his work, he enjoyed great success. Brecht died of a heart attack in East Berlin on August 14.
Bertolt Brecht, 1898–1956. Brecht has been called one of the greatest German playwrights of the 20th century. His works reflect his thoughts on the technologies of film and radio, which were newly emerging during his time. (The Granger Collection Ltd.)
Technology and Communication
Brecht realized that the emerging technologies of film and radio provided important opportunities for rethinking the formal properties of communication. He was aware of the ways in which new technologies construct their audiences in modes of reception ranging from passive, which he disliked, to active and participatory, which he favored and encouraged. Reception and representation were key to Brecht's idea of what he termed "communication with consequences." He believed that audiences perceive the real causality of the story being told only if the devices of the media solicit active inquiry.
Although he felt the new media had great potential to liberate people, Brecht also maintained that radio ignored the possibilities of organizing its listeners as suppliers of ideas. If radio were to change its focus from distribution to communication, turning listeners also into speakers, then it might generate positive social change. He did not foresee the use of radio for propaganda by right-wing (as well as leftist) ideologues. Brecht, like director Erwin Piscator (1893–1966), felt that film could be used positively within theater, and he was interested in the way new technologies of communication reconfigured content. Developments within filmmaking, for example, inspired his notion of Gestus, actions that are both simply themselves and emblematic of larger social practices.
In some of his productions, Brecht projected subtitles in advance of scenes to announce the plot to the audience. By abandoning the tension and surprise, this "communication with consequences" focused the audience on the more important task of thinking critically, socially, and politically. Distancing the audience from his plays was also crucial to his Marxist drama. Unlike the Aristotelian premise that the audience should be made to believe that what they are witnessing is happening here and now, the Marxist premise that human nature is historically conditioned required an "epic theater," which gave the audience critical detachment. This was Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect) that portrayed action in a "scientific spirit" and reminded the viewer that theater is not reality.
Critical inquiry that exposed the oppression and inequalities of capitalist production was central to Brecht's view of the potential of new technology. Spectators were able to regard the situations of the characters and the actions of the dramas as indicative of class warfare, thus underscoring the social, rather than psychological, genesis of the human condition.
Changing Views About Science and Technology
In a radio speech on March 27, 1927, Brecht stated, "It is my belief that [man] will not let himself be changed by machines but that he will himself change the machine; and whatever he looks like he will above all look human." In the same talk, he argued that this new human would be acutely aware that guns can be used for him or against him, houses can shelter or oppress him, and that live works can discourage or encourage him. To this neutralist position, Brecht added a general element of optimism. He argued that science could change nature and make the "world seem almost habitable," by overthrowing the oppressive religious mystification of experience that taught people to tolerate their fate.
Brecht realized that developments in science and technology were driving and shaping society, and he believed that these changes had to be reflected in the theatrical presentation of human transactions. His epic and dialectical theater with its emphasis on critical inquiry highlighted the increased responsibility created by new technological powers. Brecht's characters were never products of metaphysical forces, and their actions were not fated. Rather, they grappled with personal responsibilities shaped and conditioned by the larger world.
Brecht's Leben des Galilei (Life of Galileo) shows not only this fallible, striving quality of his characters, but also captures his growing unease about the human and social consequences of modern science and technology. The original 1938 version of the play portrays Galileo as a cunning, noble, and brave seeker of truth who brings light to an age of darkness. The bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, however, caused Brecht to revise the play. In this later version, Galileo is portrayed as a coward who quickly recants the truth at the sight of torture devices. He practices science only for his own gain, without regarding the possible harms or benefits to humanity. Brecht, despite his deep distrust of religion, even allows the Church to eloquently and persuasively defend its position. Ultimately, Galileo is portrayed as the initial instigator of a tradition that leads to the horrors of atomic weapons. In the play's final scene, Galileo denounces himself, because he sought knowledge for self-aggrandizement and not for the good of humanity. Brecht shows that the pursuit of truth absent considerations of the good led to the split between science and society that culminated in the use of atomic weapons on civilians. Science brings darkness rather than enlightenment.
Brecht saw the unbridled quest for knowledge and its potentially destructive consequences as a pressing concern of his age. Just as he satirized the "resistible" rise of Hitler, Brecht wanted to show how the exercise of critical thinking and personal responsibility could resist the rise of destructive technologies. Using irony, humor, and skepticism, he cautioned that human society must morally progress in order to understand and wisely direct the rapid advances in science and technology. As Brecht wrote in Leben des Galilei:
May you now guard Science's light Kindle it and use it right Lest it be a flame to fall Downward to consume us all
Brecht, Bertolt. (1981 [1938]). Leben des Galilei [Life of Galileo], eds. H. F. Brookes and C. E. Frankel. London: Heinemann. An examination of the problems that face scientists and the spirit of free inquiry when challenged by the requirements of government and official ideology.
Brecht, Bertolt. (1970–1987). Collected Plays 7 vols., eds. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen.
Esslin, Martin. (1971). Brecht: The Man and His Work, rev. ed. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.
Willett, John. (1959). The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht. London: Methuen.
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